Monday, March 26, 2012

(Still having formatting issues with paragraph breaks which will be fixed upon my return)
Fiji! - Coconuts & Kayaks
March 26, 2012 9:44 pm (March 26, 2012 3:44 am in Aspen)
Apple pancakes for breakfast, ordered roti for lunch but switched with Victoria (?) for her fish taco since she didn't want the fried fish (tried both but liked the taco better) and mahi mahi for dinner.
Another excellent day in paradise. Went kayaking (after a brief rain shower after breakfast) which was awesomely difficult. Awesome because it was gorgeous (wow, that word looks funny) and difficult because I have never had such a hard time paddling a kayak in a straight line. I don't know if it was the wind or the currents or the tide but I was going in every direction but the one I wanted to. I've kayaked in California, Mexico, and Hawaii and I've never had to work as hard at reaching my destination. More strokes were spent on course correction than on forward motion. But I'm still planning on going out again tomorrow and it'll be interesting to see if I run into the same phenomenon.
Sat in the sun for a hot second before it rained again by which time it was time for lunch. The dive boat wasn't back yet so the non-divers started without the divers who rolled in just as we were finishing. Everyone got caught up on everyone else's day and then we attended a coconut/weaving demonstration. There is some sort of borderline cheesy tourist local event scheduled for each day and the cynic in me rolls my eyes but the coconut thing was actually very cool. The local guy showed us how to open both a brown and a green coconut to drink the coconut water and then how to split it to get at the meat. First time I've ever eaten coconut meat straight out of a coconut. Yum. He also wove a "men's" basket right before our eyes. Incredibly complicated and skilled.
Next, Kim went to her Wilderness Medicine session and I went to my spa session. After a sugar scrub and a lomi-lomi massage while listening to the wind and the third brief rain shower of the day, I had just enough time to shower and change before dinner.
Tomorrow, Kim's getting up early to do a mountain hike, but I just can't get motivated to venture into the hot, muggy, buggy so I'm skipping that. There is a school visit in the afternoon that I might venture out on.